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Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: It Is Always the Media's Fault - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...it-is-always-medias-fault.html

Media Science Communication Climate Science Oil Uncertainty Projection Forecast

shared by Weiye Loh on 10 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Last summer NCAR issued a dramatic press release announcing that oil from the Gulf spill would soon be appearing on the beaches of the Atlantic ocean.  I discussed it here. Here are the first four paragraphs of that press release: BOULDER—A detailed computer modeling study released today indicates that oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer. The modeling results are captured in a series of dramatic animations produced by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and collaborators. he research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor. The results were reviewed by scientists at NCAR and elsewhere, although not yet submitted for peer-review publication. “I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Will the oil reach Florida?’” says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the study. “Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.” The computer simulations indicate that, once the oil in the uppermost ocean has become entrained in the Gulf of Mexico’s fast-moving Loop Current, it is likely to reach Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks. It can then move north as far as about Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with the Gulf Stream, before turning east. Whether the oil will be a thin film on the surface or mostly subsurface due to mixing in the uppermost region of the ocean is not known.
  • A few weeks ago NCAR's David Hosansky who presumably wrote that press release, asks whether NCAR got it wrong.  His answer?  No, not really: During last year’s crisis involving the massive release of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, NCAR issued a much-watched animation projecting that the oil could reach the Atlantic Ocean. But detectable amounts of oil never made it to the Atlantic, at least not in an easily visible form on the ocean surface. Not surprisingly, we’ve heard from a few people asking whether NCAR got it wrong. These events serve as a healthy reminder of a couple of things: *the difference between a projection and an actual forecast *the challenges of making short-term projections of natural processes that can act chaotically, such as ocean currents
  • What then went wrong? First, the projection. Scientists from NCAR, the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and IFM-GEOMAR in Germany did not make a forecast of where the oil would go. Instead, they issued a projection. While there’s not always a clear distinction between the two, forecasts generally look only days or hours into the future and are built mostly on known elements (such as the current amount of humidity in the atmosphere). Projections tend to look further into the future and deal with a higher number of uncertainties (such as the rate at which oil degrades in open waters and the often chaotic movements of ocean currents). Aware of the uncertainties, the scientific team projected the likely path of the spill with a computer model of a liquid dye. They used dye rather than actual oil, which undergoes bacterial breakdown, because a reliable method to simulate that breakdown was not available. As it turned out, the oil in the Gulf broke down quickly due to exceptionally strong bacterial action and, to some extent, the use of chemical dispersants.
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  • Second, the challenges of short-term behavior. The Gulf's Loop Current acts as a conveyor belt, moving from the Yucatan through the Florida Straits into the Atlantic. Usually, the current curves northward near the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts—a configuration that would have put it on track to pick up the oil and transport it into open ocean. However, the current’s short-term movements over a few weeks or even months are chaotic and impossible to predict. Sometimes small eddies, or mini-currents, peel off, shifting the position and strength of the main current. To determine the threat to the Atlantic, the research team studied averages of the Loop Current’s past behavior in order to simulate its likely course after the spill and ran several dozen computer simulations under various scenarios. Fortunately for the East Coast, the Loop Current did not behave in its usual fashion but instead remained farther south than usual, which kept it far from the Louisiana and Mississippi coast during the crucial few months before the oil degraded and/or was dispersed with chemical treatments.
  • The Loop Current typically goes into a southern configuration about every 6 to 19 months, although it rarely remains there for very long. NCAR scientist Synte Peacock, who worked on the projection, explains that part of the reason the current is unpredictable is “no two cycles of the Loop Current are ever exactly the same." She adds that the cycles are influenced by such variables as how large the eddy is, where the current detaches and moves south, and how long it takes for the current to reform. Computer models can simulate the currents realistically, she adds. But they cannot predict when the currents will change over to a new cycle. The scientists were careful to explain that their simulations were a suite of possible trajectories demonstrating what was likely to happen, but not a definitive forecast of what would happen. They reiterated that point in a peer-reviewed study on the simulations that appeared last August in Environmental Research Letters. 
  • So who was at fault?  According to Hosansky it was those dummies in the media: These caveats, however, got lost in much of the resulting media coverage.Another perspective is that having some of these caveats in the press release might have been a good idea.
Weiye Loh

Rationally Speaking: A different kind of moral relativism - 0 views

rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/...-kind-of-moral-relativism.html

Morality Relativism Monism Pluralism Science Reasoning Rights

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Prinz’s basic stance is that moral values stem from our cognitive hardware, upbringing, and social environment. These equip us with deep-seated moral emotions, but these emotions express themselves in a contingent way due to cultural circumstances. And while reason can help, it has limited influence, and can only reshape our ethics up to a point, it cannot settle major differences between different value systems. Therefore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to construct an objective morality that transcends emotions and circumstance.
  • As Prinz writes, in part:“No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value, because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes. … Reason cannot tell us which facts are morally good. Reason is evaluatively neutral. At best, reason can tell us which of our values are inconsistent, and which actions will lead to fulfillment of our goals. But, given an inconsistency, reason cannot tell us which of our conflicting values to drop or which goals to follow. If my goals come into conflict with your goals, reason tells me that I must either thwart your goals, or give up caring about mine; but reason cannot tell me to favor one choice over the other. … Moral judgments are based on emotions, and reasoning normally contributes only by helping us extrapolate from our basic values to novel cases. Reasoning can also lead us to discover that our basic values are culturally inculcated, and that might impel us to search for alternative values, but reason alone cannot tell us which values to adopt, nor can it instill new values.”
  • This moral relativism is not the absolute moral relativism of, supposedly, bands of liberal intellectuals, or of postmodernist philosophers. It presents a more serious challenge to those who argue there can be objective morality. To be sure, there is much Prinz and I agree on. At the least, we agree that morality is largely constructed by our cognition, upbringing, and social environment; and that reason has the power synthesize and clarify our worldviews, and help us plan for and react to life’s situations
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  • Suppose I concede to Prinz that reason cannot settle differences in moral values and sentiments. Difference of opinion doesn’t mean that there isn’t a true or rational answer. In fact, there are many reasons why our cognition, emotional reactions or previous values could be wrong or irrational — and why people would not pick up on their deficiencies. In his article, Prinz uses the case of sociopaths, who simply lack certain cognitive abilities. There are many reasons other than sociopathy why human beings can get things wrong, morally speaking, often and badly. It could be that people are unable to adopt a more objective morality because of their circumstances — from brain deficiencies to lack of access to relevant information. But, again, none of this amounts to an argument against the existence of objective morality.
  • As it turns out, Prinz’s conception of objective morality does not quite reflect the thinking of most people who believe in objective morality. He writes that: “Objectivism holds that there is one true morality binding upon all of us.” This is a particular strand of moral realism, but there are many. For instance, one can judge some moral precepts as better than others, yet remain open to the fact that there are probably many different ways to establish a good society. This is a pluralistic conception of objective morality which doesn’t assume one absolute moral truth. For all that has been said, Sam Harris’ idea of a moral landscape does help illustrate this concept. Thinking in terms of better and worse morality gets us out of relativism and into an objectivist approach. The important thing to note is that one need not go all the way to absolute objectivity to work toward a rational, non-arbitrary morality.
  • even Prinz admits that “Relativism does not entail that we should tolerate murderous tyranny. When someone threatens us or our way of life, we are strongly motivated to protect ourselves.” That is, there are such things as better and worse values: the worse ones kill us, the better ones don’t. This is a very broad criterion, but it is an objective standard. Prinz is arguing for a tighter moral relativism – a sort of stripped down objective morality that is constricted by nature, experience, and our (modest) reasoning abilities.
  • I proposed at the discussion that a more objective morality could be had with the help of a robust public discourse on the issues at hand. Prinz does not necessarily disagree. He wrote that “Many people have overlapping moral values, and one can settle debates by appeal to moral common ground.” But Prinz pointed out a couple of limitations on public discourse. For example, the agreements we reach on “moral common ground” are often exclusive of some, and abstract in content. Consider the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a seemingly good example of global moral agreement. Yet, it was ratified by a small sample of 48 countries, and it is based on suspiciously Western sounding language. Everyone has a right to education and health care, but — Prinz pointed out during the discussion — what level of education and health care? Still, the U.N. declaration was passed 48-0 with just 8 abstentions (Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, USSR, Yugoslavia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia). It includes 30 articles of ethical standards agreed upon by 48 countries around the world. Such a document does give us more reason to think that public discourse can lead to significant agreement upon values.
  • Reason might not be able to arrive at moral truths, but it can push us to test and question the rationality of our values — a crucial part in the process that leads to the adoption of new, or modified values. The only way to reduce disputes about morality is to try to get people on the same page about their moral goals. Given the above, this will not be easy, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too optimistic in our ability to employ reason to figure things out. But reason is still the best, and even only, tool we can wield, and while it might not provide us with a truly objective morality, it’s enough to save us from complete moral relativism.
Weiye Loh

Land Destroyer: Alternative Economics - 0 views

landdestroyer.blogspot.com/...alternative-economics.html

New Media Economics

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Peer to peer file sharing (P2P) has made media distribution free and has become the bane of media monopolies. P2P file sharing means digital files can be copied and distributed at no cost. CD's, DVD's, and other older forms of holding media are no longer necessary, nor is the cost involved in making them or distributing them along a traditional logistical supply chain. Disc burners, however, allow users the ability to create their own physical copies at a fraction of the cost of buying the media from the stores. Supply and demand is turned on its head as the more popular a certain file becomes via demand, the more of it that is available for sharing, and the easier it is to obtain. Supply and demand increase in tandem towards a lower "price" of obtaining the said file.Consumers demand more as price decreases. Producersnaturally want to produce more of something as priceincreases. Somewhere in between consumers and producers meet at the market price or "marketequilibrium."P2P technology eliminates material scarcity, thus the more afile is in demand, the more people end up downloading it, andthe easier it is for others to find it and download it. Considerthe implications this would have if technology made physicalobjects as easy to "share" as information is now.
  • In the end, it is not government regulations, legal contrivances, or licenses that govern information, but rather the free market mechanism commonly referred to as Adam Smith's self regulating "Invisible Hand of the Market." In other words, people selfishly seeking accurate information for their own benefit encourage producers to provide the best possible information to meet their demand. While this is not possible in a monopoly, particularly the corporate media monopoly of the "left/right paradigm" of false choice, it is inevitable in the field of real competition that now exists online due to information technology.
  • Compounding the establishment's troubles are cheaper cameras and cheaper, more capable software for 3D graphics, editing, mixing, and other post production tasks, allowing for the creation of an alternative publishing, audio and video industry. "Underground" counter-corporate music and film has been around for a long time but through the combination of technology and the zealous corporate lawyers disenfranchising a whole new generation that now seeks an alternative, it is truly coming of age.
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  • With a growing community of people determined to become collaborative producers rather than fit into the producer/consumer paradigm, and 3D files for physical objects already being shared like movies and music, the implications are profound. Products, and the manufacturing technology used to make them will continue to drop in price, become easier to make for individuals rather than large corporations, just as media is now shifting into the hands of the common people. And like the shift of information, industry will move from the elite and their agenda of preserving their power, to the end of empowering the people.
  • In a future alternative economy where everyone is a collaborative designer, producer, and manufacturer instead of passive consumers and when problems like "global climate change," "overpopulation," and "fuel crises" cross our path, we will counter them with technical solutions, not political indulgences like carbon taxes, and not draconian decrees like "one-child policies."
  • We will become the literal architects of our own future in this "personal manufacturing" revolution. While these technologies may still appear primitive, or somewhat "useless" or "impractical" we must remember where our personal computers stood on the eve of the dawning of the information age and how quickly they changed our lives. And while many of us may be unaware of this unfolding revolution, you can bet the globalists, power brokers, and all those that stand to lose from it not only see it but are already actively fighting against it.Understandably it takes some technical know-how to jump into the personal manufacturing revolution. In part 2 of "Alternative Economics" we will explore real world "low-tech" solutions to becoming self-sufficient, local, and rediscover the empowerment granted by doing so.
Weiye Loh

In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear Dependency - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...31japan.html

Nuclear Economy Japan Green Energy

shared by Weiye Loh on 31 May 11 - No Cached
  • look no further than the Fukada Sports Park, which serves the 7,500 mostly older residents here with a baseball diamond, lighted tennis courts, a soccer field and a $35 million gymnasium with indoor pool and Olympic-size volleyball arena. The gym is just one of several big public works projects paid for with the hundreds of millions of dollars this community is receiving for acce
  • the aid has enriched rural communities that were rapidly losing jobs and people to the cities. With no substantial reserves of oil or coal, Japan relies on nuclear power for the energy needed to drive its economic machine. But critics contend that the largess has also made communities dependent on central government spending — and thus unwilling to rock the boat by pushing for robust safety measures.
  • Tsuneyoshi Adachi, a 63-year-old fisherman, joined the huge protests in the 1970s and 1980s against the plant’s No. 2 reactor. He said many fishermen were angry then because chlorine from the pumps of the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which began operating in 1974, was killing seaweed and fish in local fishing grounds. However, Mr. Adachi said, once compensation payments from the No. 2 reactor began to flow in, neighbors began to give him cold looks and then ignore him. By the time the No. 3 reactor was proposed in the early 1990s, no one, including Mr. Adachi, was willing to speak out against the plant. He said that there was the same peer pressure even after the accident at Fukushima, which scared many here because they live within a few miles of the Shimane plant. “Sure, we are all worried in our hearts about whether the same disaster could happen at the Shimane nuclear plant,” Mr. Adachi said. However, “the town knows it can no longer survive economically without the nuclear plant.”
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  • Much of this flow of cash was the product of the Three Power Source Development Laws, a sophisticated system of government subsidies created in 1974 by Kakuei Tanaka, the powerful prime minister who shaped Japan’s nuclear power landscape and used big public works projects to build postwar Japan’s most formidable political machine. The law required all Japanese power consumers to pay, as part of their utility bills, a tax that was funneled to communities with nuclear plants. Officials at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which regulates the nuclear industry, and oversees the subsidies, refused to specify how much communities have come to rely on those subsidies. “This is money to promote the locality’s acceptance of a nuclear plant,” said Tatsumi Nakano of the ministry’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.
Weiye Loh

Iceland Crowd-Sources its New Constitution on Facebook | The Utopianist - Think Bigger - 0 views

utopianist.com/...s-new-constitution-on-facebook

Crowd-Sourcing Politics Law

shared by Weiye Loh on 11 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The Guardian reports: In creating the new document, the council has been posting draft clauses on its website every week since the project launched in April. The public can comment underneath or join a discussion on the council’s Facebook page. The council also has a Twitter account, a YouTube page where interviews with its members are regularly posted, and a Flickr account containing pictures of the 25 members at work, all intended to maximise interaction with citizens. Meetings of the council are open to the public and streamed live on to the website and Facebook page. The latter has more than 1,300 likes in a country of 320,000 people. The crowdsourcing follows a national forum last year where 950 randomly selected people spent a day discussing the constitution. If the committee has its way the draft bill, due to be ready at the end of July, will be put to a referendum without any changes imposed by parliament – so it will genuinely be a document by the people, for the people.
Weiye Loh

Can Real-Life $150 Spy Glasses Make Societies More Transparent? | The Utopianist - Thin... - 0 views

utopianist.com/...ake-societies-more-transparent

Spying Privacy Camera Transparency Panopticon

shared by Weiye Loh on 10 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The Roy Orbison looking Eyez will feature a 720p HD recording camera, microphone, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, 8 GB flash memory, and three hours of battery life. Using an iPhone or Android app you can transmit what your Eyez record directly to the web, or you can save and upload it later using a microUSB port. Here’s a promo clip of the glasses from ZionEyez, the start-up company developing them:
  • At $150 a pair, these glasses are cheap enough to become invaluable tools for journalists in volatile regions, especially those living under regimes who restrict free speech and press — where being seen recording video can be dangerous
  • the notion of more and easier surveillance will draw the inevitable comparisons to Big Brother — and certainly, the notion that our deeds could be surreptitiously captured by strangers, even friends, without our knowledge is an uncomfortable one. But some would argue that given the amount of surveillance we now face by the state, the amount of information we willingly volunteer about ourselves to corporations and on social media sites anyways, pervasive video-taking goggles seem like a natural stage in the evolution towards something like David Brin’s transparent society.
  • Weiye Loh on 10 Jun 11
     
    So what's Utopianist about some fairly snazzy, semi-affordable spy glasses that allow their users to furtively record video of the goings-on around them?
Weiye Loh

Hashtags, a New Way for Tweets - Cultural Studies - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...r-tweets-cultural-studies.html

Twitter Hashtag

shared by Weiye Loh on 13 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • hashtags have transcended the 140-characters-or-less microblogging platform, and have become a new cultural shorthand, finding their way into chat windows, e-mail and face-to-face conversations.
  • people began using hashtags to add humor, context and interior monologues to their messages — and everyday conversation. As Susan Orlean wrote in a New Yorker blog post titled “Hash,” the symbol can be “a more sophisticated, verbal version of the dread winking emoticon that tweens use to signify that they’re joking.”
  • “Because you have a hashtag embedded in a short message with real language, it starts exhibiting other characteristics of natural language, which means basically that people start playing with it and manipulating it,” said Jacob Eisenstein, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in computational linguistics. “You’ll see them used as humor, as sort of meta-commentary, where you’ll write a message and maybe you don’t really believe it, and what you really think is in the hashtag.”
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  • Hashtags then began popping up outside of Twitter, in e-mails, chat windows and text messages.
  • Using a hashtag is also a way for someone to convey that they’re part of a certain scene.
Weiye Loh

'BBC's biased climate science reporting isn't biased enough' claims report - Telegraph ... - 0 views

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/...nt-biased-enough-claims-report

Climate Change Journalism Objectivity

shared by Weiye Loh on 01 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • What many of these sceptics – or deniers, if you must – do question is a) whether – and if so by how much – this warming is anthropogenic (ie human-caused) b) whether the warming constitutes a threat – or whether its benefits might in fact far outweigh its drawbacks c) whether this warming likely to continue or whether – as happened without human influence at the end of the Roman warm period and the Medieval warm period – it will be followed by a period of natural cooling d) whether the drastic policy measures (tax, regulation, “decarbonisation”, the drive for renewables) being enacted to ‘combat climate change’ will not end up doing far more harm than good.
  • Though Dr Jones’s report argues that the BBC should from henceforward give less space to sceptics, it’s difficult to imagine quite how it could possibly do so. About the only occasion on which they have been given any air space has been on hatchet-jobs like the BBC’s feature-length assault on Lord Monckton, “Meet The Climate Sceptics”.
Weiye Loh

Not Evil Just Wrong - The explosive new documentary exposing the dangers of global warm... - 0 views

noteviljustwrong.com/...index.html

global warming religion nature

shared by Weiye Loh on 17 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 17 Oct 09
     
    Something I received in my email - from American Family Association, an extreme conservative Christian network. The new documentary is basically a response to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", to (counter-)claim that the global warming "Industry" is causing alarmism and tax increases. From what I see, it's a highly capitalist-driven film. The online premiere will be on 18th Oct, 8pm est. Not directly related. But still interesting I guess. =)
yongernn teo

Ethics and Values Case Study- Mercy Killing, Euthanasia - 8 views

www.brainmass.com/...86151

Euthanasia

shared by yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09 - Cached
  • yongernn teo on 21 Oct 09
     
    THE ETHICAL PROBLEM: Allowing someone to die, mercy death, and mercy killing, Euthanasia: A 24-year-old man named Robert who has a wife and child is paralyzed from the neck down in a motorcycle accident. He has always been very active and hates the idea of being paralyzed. He also is in a great deal of pain, an he has asked his doctors and other members of his family to "put him out of his misery." After several days of such pleading, his brother comes into Robert's hospital ward and asks him if he is sure he still wants to be put out of his misery. Robert says yes and pleads with his brother to kill him. The brother kisses and blesses Robert, then takes out a gun and shoots him, killing him instantly. The brother later is tried for murder and acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. Was what Robert's brother did moral? Do you think he should have been brought to trial at all? Do you think he should have been acquitted? Would you do the same for a loved one if you were asked? THE DISCUSSION: In my opinion, the most dubious part about the case would be the part on Robert pleading with his brother, asking his brother to kill him. This could be his brother's own account of the incident and could/could not have been a plea by Robert. 1) With assumption that Robert indeed pleaded with his brother to kill him, an ethical analysis as such could be derived: That Robert's brother was only respecting Robert's choice and killed him because he wanted to relieve him from his misery. This could be argued to be ethical using a teleoloigical framework where the focus is on the end-result and the consequences that entails the action. Here, although the act of killing per se may be wrong and illegal, Robert was able to relieved of his pain and suffering. 2) With an assumption that Robert did not plea with his brother to kill him and that it was his brother's own decision to relieve Robert of all-suffering: In this case, the b
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  • Elaine Ong on 22 Oct 09
     
    I find euthanasia to be a very interesting ethical dilemma. Even I myself am caught in the middle. Euthanasia has been termed as 'mercy killing' and even 'happy death'. Others may simply just term it as being 'evil'. Is it right to end someone's life even when he or she pleads you to do so? In the first place, is it even right to commit suicide? Once someone pulls off the main support that's keeping the person alive, such as the feeding tube, there is no turning back. Hmm..Come to think of it, technology is kind of unethical by being made available, for in the past, when someone is dying, they had the right to die naturally. Now, scientific technology is 'forcing' us to stay alive and cling on to a life that may be deemed being worthless if we were standing outside our bodies looking at our comatose selves. Then again, this may just be MY personal standpoint. But I have to argue, who gave technology the right to make me a worthless vegetable!(and here I am, attaching a value/judgement onto an immobile human being..) Hence, being incompetent in making decisions for my unconscious self (or perhaps even brain dead), who should take responsibility for my life, for my existence? And on what basis are they allowed to help me out? Taking the other side of the argument, against euthanasia, we can say that the act of ending someone else's life is the act of destroying societal respect for life. Based on the utilitarian perspective, we are not thinking of the overall beneficence for society and disregarding the moral considerations encompassed within the state's interest to preserve the sanctity of all life. It has been said that life in itself takes priority over all other values. We should let the person live so as to give him/her a chance to wake up or hope for recovery (think comatose patients). But then again we can also argue that life is not the top of the hierarchy! A life without rights is as if not living a life at all? By removing the patient
  • juliet huang on 28 Oct 09
     
    as a human being, you supposedly have a right to live, whether you are mobile or immobile. however, i think that, in the case of euthanasia, you 'give up' your rights when you "show" that you are no longer able to serve the pre-requisites of having the right. for example, if "living" rights are equate to you being able to talk, walk, etc etc, then, obviously the opposite means you no longer are able to perform up to the expectations of that right. then again, it is very subjective as to who gets to make that criteria!
  • Magdaleine on 02 Nov 09
     
    hmm interesting.. however, a question i have is who and when can this "right" be "given up"? when i am a victim in a car accident, and i lost the ability to breathe, walk and may need months to recover. i am unconscious and the doctor is unable to determine when am i gonna regain consciousness. when should my parents decide i can no longer be able to have any living rights? and taking elaine's point into consideration, is committing suicide even 'right'? if it is legally not right, when i ask someone to take my life and wrote a letter that it was cus i wanted to die, does that make it committing suicide only in the hands of others?
  • Low Yunying on 04 Nov 09
     
    Similarly, I question the 'rights' that you have to 'give up' when you no longer 'serve the pre-requisites of having the right'. If the living rights means being able to talk and walk, then where does it leave infants? Where does it leave people who may be handicapped? Have their lost their rights to living?
Jody Poh

Powering our way out of poverty - 3 views

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8046112.stm Only the first part of the article before "Cheap and Continuous" is relevant. Although the whole article is about saving the environment, it h...

social progress technology ethics justice

started by Jody Poh on 03 Nov 09 no follow-up yet
lee weiting

techno-immortality - 1 views

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/3476/ immortality becoming real? this sounds so unbelievable and scary to me. techno immortality is changing our identity...we may be gradually losing our iden...

started by lee weiting on 04 Nov 09 no follow-up yet
Weiye Loh

Straits Times Forum explains why it heavily edited letter | The Online Citizen - 0 views

theonlinecitizen.com/...s-why-it-heavily-edited-letter

News media bias Statistics Representation Singapore

shared by Weiye Loh on 28 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • 1. You stated we wrongly replaced the statistic you cited with another from Ms Rachel Chang’s article on March 8 (“School system still the ‘best way to move up’). Your original letter “It is indeed heartwarming to learn that 90% of children from one-to-three-room flats do not make it to university.” Reasons we edited it: Factual error, sense. There were two problems with your sentence. First, it was contradictory and didn’t make sense.Your original sentence cannot mean what it says unless you were elated over the fact that nine in 10 children from less well-off homes failed to qualify for university. So we edited it for sense, i.e., underscoring a positive feeling (heartwarming) with a positive fact; rather than the self-penned irony of a positive feeling (heartwarming) backed by a negative fact (90% failure rate to university admission by less well off children). That was why we replaced the original statistic with the only one in Ms Chang’s March 8 report that matched your elation, that is, that 50 percent of less well off children found tertiary success.
  • (Visa: Firstly, I find it hard to believe that nobody in the Straits Times office understands the meaning of sarcasm. Secondly, there was NO FACTUAL ERROR. Allow me to present to you the statistics, direct from The Straits Times themselves: http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/pdf/20110308/a10.pdf )
  • Second, we replaced your original statistic because it did not exist in Ms Chang’s March 8 front-page report. Ms Chang quoted that statistic in a later article (“Poor kids need aspiration: March 18; paragraph 5), which appeared after your letter was published. (Visa: It did not exist? Pay careful attention to the URL: http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/pdf/20110308/a10.pdf . Look at the number. 20110308. 2011 03 08. 8th March 2011.)
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  • 2. Your original letter “His (Education Minister Dr Ng) statement is backed up with the statistic that 50% of children from the bottom third of the socio-economic ladder score in the bottom third of the Primary School Leaving Examination. “ Reason we edited it: Factual error
  • “His statement is backed by the statistic that about 50 per cent of children from the bottom third of the socio-economic bracket score within the top two-thirds of their Primary School Leaving Examination cohort. (Para 3 of Ms Chang’s March 8 report). (Visa:  THIS IS NOT A FACTUAL ERROR. If 50% of a group score in the top two-thirds, then the remaining 50% of the group, by simple process of elimination, must score in the bottom third!)
  • You can assume that the stats are wrong, but you CANNOT CHANGE it and CONTINUE to use the contributor’s name! Where is your journalist moral, ethic, and basic human decency? Since it is YOUR meaning, and not the writer’s, don’t it mean that you ABUSE, FABRICATE, and LIE to the public that that was by Samuel?
  • Either you print a news column or delete the letter. At least have some basic courtesy to call and ASK the writer for changes. Even a kid knows that its basic human decency to ask. HOW come you, as a grown man, YAP KOON HONG, can’t?
  • “So we edited it for sense ……. That was why we replaced the original statistic with the only one in Ms Chang’s March 8 report that matched your elation ……” and “So, we needed to provide the context to the minister’s statement in order to retain the sense of your meaning.” These are extraordinary statements. My understanding is that editors edit for clarity and brevity. It is extraordinary and perhaps only in Singapore that editors also edit for “sense”.
  • 50% make it to university therefore the other 50% did not make it. This kind of reasoning only works in primary or secondary school maths. In the real world, academia and journalism, the above would be considered a logical fallacy. To explain why, one must consider the fact that not going to university is not the same as “not making it”. World class musicians, sports, volunteer work, oversease universities, travel, these are just a few of the reasons why we can’t just do a simple calculation when it comes to statistics. Bill Gates didn’t go to university, would we classify him as “not making it” Sarcasm has no place in journalism as it relies on visual and vocal indicators to interpret. I live in Washington, and if the above letter was sent to any newspaper it would be thrown out with all the other garbage faster than you could say freedom of speech. At least the editor in question here bothered to try his best to get the letter published.
  • “we felt your opinion deserved publication” Please, Yap Koon Hong, what you published was the very opposite of his opinion! As you yourself admitted, Samuel’s letter was ironic in nature, but you removed all traces of irony and changed the statistics to fabricate a sense of “elation” that Samuel did not mean to convey!
Weiye Loh

Skepticblog » Global Warming Skeptic Changes His Tune - by Doing the Science ... - 0 views

skepticblog.org/...rming-skeptic-changes-his-tune

Climate Science Skepticism Berkeley Earth

shared by Weiye Loh on 08 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • To the global warming deniers, Muller had been an important scientific figure with good credentials who had expressed doubt about the temperature data used to track the last few decades of global warming. Muller was influenced by Anthony Watts, a former TV weatherman (not a trained climate scientist) and blogger who has argued that the data set is mostly from large cities, where the “urban heat island” effect might bias the overall pool of worldwide temperature data. Climate scientists have pointed out that they have accounted for this possible effect already, but Watts and Muller were unconvinced. With $150,000 (25% of their funding) from the Koch brothers (the nation’s largest supporters of climate denial research), as well as the Getty Foundation (their wealth largely based on oil money) and other funding sources, Muller set out to reanalyze all the temperature data by setting up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project.
  • Although only 2% of the data were analyzed by last month, the Republican climate deniers in Congress called him to testify in their March 31 hearing to attack global warming science, expecting him to give them scientific data supporting their biases. To their dismay, Muller behaved like a real scientist and not an ideologue—he followed his data and told them the truth, not what they wanted to hear. Muller pointed out that his analysis of the data set almost exactly tracked what the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS), and the Hadley Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK had already published (see figure).
  • Muller testified before the House Committee that: The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was created to make the best possible estimate of global temperature change using as complete a record of measurements as possible and by applying novel methods for the estimation and elimination of systematic biases. We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups. The world temperature data has sufficient integrity to be used to determine global temperature trends. Despite potential biases in the data, methods of analysis can be used to reduce bias effects well enough to enable us to measure long-term Earth temperature changes. Data integrity is adequate. Based on our initial work at Berkeley Earth, I believe that some of the most worrisome biases are less of a problem than I had previously thought.
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  • The right-wing ideologues were sorely disappointed, and reacted viciously in the political sphere by attacking their own scientist, but Muller’s scientific integrity overcame any biases he might have harbored at the beginning. He “called ‘em as he saw ‘em” and told truth to power.
  • it speaks well of the scientific process when a prominent skeptic like Muller does his job properly and admits that his original biases were wrong. As reported in the Los Angeles Times : Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, which contributed some funding to the Berkeley effort, said Muller’s statement to Congress was “honorable” in recognizing that “previous temperature reconstructions basically got it right…. Willingness to revise views in the face of empirical data is the hallmark of the good scientific process.”
  • This is the essence of the scientific method at its best. There may be biases in our perceptions, and we may want to find data that fits our preconceptions about the world, but if science is done properly, we get a real answer, often one we did not expect or didn’t want to hear. That’s the true test of when science is giving us a reality check: when it tells us “an inconvenient truth”, something we do not like, but is inescapable if one follows the scientific method and analyzes the data honestly.
  • Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
Weiye Loh

BioCentre - 0 views

www.bioethics.ac.uk/...reject-radical-enhancement.php

Human Technology Transhumanism Bioethics

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Humanity’s End. The main premise of the book is that proposals that would supposedly promise to make us smarter like never before or add thousands of years to our live seem rather far fetched and the domain of mere fantasy. However, it is these very proposals which form the basis of many of the ideas and thoughts presented by advocates of radical enhancement and which are beginning to move from the sidelines to the centre of main stream discussion. A variety of technologies and therapies are being presented to us as options to expand our capabilities and capacities in order for us to become something other than human.
  • Agar takes issue with this and argues against radical human enhancement. He structures his analysis and discussion by focusing on four key figures and their proposals which help to form the core of the case for radical enhancement debate.  First to be examined by Agar is Ray Kurzweil who argues that Man and Machine will become one as technology allows us to transcend our biology. Second, is Aubrey de Grey who is a passionate advocate and pioneer of anti-ageing therapies which allow us to achieve “longevity escape velocity”. Next is Nick Bostrom, a leading transhumanist who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement and finally James Hughes who is a keen advocate of a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and un-enhanced.
  • He avoids falling into any of the pitfalls of basing his argument solely upon the “playing God” question but instead seeks to posit a well founded argument in favour of the precautionary principle.
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  • Agar directly tackles Hughes’ ideas of a “democratic transhumanism.” Here as post-humans and humans live shoulder to shoulder in wonderful harmony, all persons have access to the technologies they want in order to promote their own flourishing.  Under girding all of this is the belief that no human should feel pressurised to become enhance. Agar finds no comfort with this and instead can foresee a situation where it would be very difficult for humans to ‘choose’ to remain human.  The pressure to radically enhance would be considerable given the fact that the radically enhanced would no doubt be occupying the positions of power in society and would consider the moral obligation to utilise to the full enhancement techniques as being a moral imperative for the good of society.  For those who were able to withstand then a new underclass would no doubt emerge between the enhanced and the un-enhanced. This is precisely the kind of society which Hughes appears to be overly optimistic will not emerge but which is more akin to Lee Silver’s prediction of the future with the distinction made between the "GenRich" and the "naturals”.  This being the case, the author proposes that we have two options: radical enhancement is either enforced across the board or banned outright. It is the latter option which Agar favours but crucially does not elaborate further on so it is unclear as to how he would attempt such a ban given the complexity of the issue. This is disappointing as any general initial reflections which the author felt able to offer would have added to the discussion and added further strength to his line of argument.
  • A Transhuman Manifesto The final focus for Agar is James Hughes, who published his transhumanist manifesto Citizen Cyborg in 2004. Given the direct connection with politics and public policy this for me was a particularly interesting read. The basic premise to Hughes argument is that once humans and post humans recognise each other as citizens then this will mark the point at which they will be able to get along with each other.
  • Agar takes to task the argument Bostrom made with Toby Ord, concerning claims against enhancement. Bostrom and Ord argue that it boils down to a preference for the status quo; current human intellects and life spans are preferred and deemed best because they are what we have now and what we are familiar with (p. 134).  Agar discusses the fact that in his view, Bostrom falls into a focalism – focusing on and magnifying the positives whilst ignoring the negative implications.  Moreover, Agar goes onto develop and reiterate his earlier point that the sort of radical enhancements Bostrom et al enthusiastically support and promote take us beyond what is human so they are no longer human. It therefore cannot be said to be human enhancement given the fact that the traits or capacities that such enhancement afford us would be in many respects superior to ours, but they would not be ours.
  • With his law of accelerating returns and talk of the Singularity Ray Kurzweil proposes that we are speeding towards a time when our outdated systems of neurons and synapses will be traded for far more efficient electronic circuits, allowing us to become artificially super-intelligent and transferring our minds from brains into machines.
  • Having laid out the main ideas and thinking behind Kurzweil’s proposals, Agar makes the perceptive comment that despite the apparent appeal of greater processing power it would nevertheless be no longer human. Introducing chips to the human body and linking into the human nervous system to computers as per Ray Kurzweil’s proposals will prove interesting but it goes beyond merely creating a copy of us in order to that future replication and uploading can take place. Rather it will constitute something more akin to an upgrade. Electrochemical signals that the brain use to achieve thought travel at 100 metres per second. This is impressive but contrast this with the electrical signals in a computer which travel at 300 million metres per second then the distinction is clear. If the predictions are true how will such radically enhanced and empowered beings live not only the unenhanced but also what will there quality of life really be? In response, Agar favours something what he calls “rational biological conservatism” (pg. 57) where we set limits on how intelligent we can become in light of the fact that it will never be rational to us for human beings to completely upload their minds onto computers.
  • Agar then proceeds to argue that in the pursuit of Kurzweil enhanced capacities and capabilities we might accidentally undermine capacities of equal value. This line of argument would find much sympathy from those who consider human organisms in “ecological” terms, representing a profound interconnectedness which when interfered with presents a series of unknown and unexpected consequences. In other words, our specifies-specific form of intelligence may well be linked to species-specific form of desire. Thus, if we start building upon and enhancing our capacity to protect and promote deeply held convictions and beliefs then due to the interconnectedness, it may well affect and remove our desire to perform such activities (page 70). Agar’s subsequent discussion and reference to the work of Jerry Foder, philosopher and cognitive scientist is particularly helpful in terms of the functioning of the mind by modules and the implications of human-friendly AI verses human-unfriendly AI.
  • In terms of the author’s discussion of Aubrey de Grey, what is refreshing to read from the outset is the author’s clear grasp of Aubrey’s ideas and motivation. Some make the mistake of thinking he is the man who wants to live forever, when in actual fact this is not the case.  De Grey wants to reverse the ageing process - Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) so that people are living longer and healthier lives. Establishing this clear distinction affords the author the opportunity to offer more grounded critiques of de Grey’s than some of his other critics. The author makes plain that de Grey’s immediate goal is to achieve longevity escape velocity (LEV), where anti-ageing therapies add years to life expectancy faster than age consumes them.
  • In weighing up the benefits of living significantly longer lives, Agar posits a compelling argument that I had not fully seen before. In terms of risk, those radically enhanced to live longer may actually be the most risk adverse and fearful people to live. Taking the example of driving a car, a forty year-old senescing human being who gets into their car to drive to work and is involved in a fatal accident “stands to lose, at most, a few healthy, youthful years and a slightly larger number of years with reduced quality” (p.116). In stark contrast should a negligibly senescent being who drives a car and is involved in an accident resulting in their death, stands to lose on average one thousand, healthy, youthful years (p.116).  
  • De Grey’s response to this seems a little flippant; with the end of ageing comes an increased sense of risk-aversion so the desire for risky activity such as driving will no longer be prevalent. Moreover, plus because we are living for longer we will not be in such a hurry to get to places!  Virtual reality comes into its own at this point as a means by which the negligibly senescent being ‘adrenaline junkie’ can be engaged with activities but without the associated risks. But surely the risk is part of the reason why they would want to engage in snow boarding, bungee jumping et al in the first place. De Grey’s strategy seemingly fails to appreciate the extent to which human beings want “direct” contact with the “real” world.
  • Continuing this idea further though, Agar’s subsequent discussion of the role of fire-fighters is an interesting one.  A negligibly senescent fire fighter may stand to loose more when they are trapped in a burning inferno but being negligibly senescent means that they are better fire-fighters by virtue of increase vitality. Having recently heard de Grey speak and had the privilege of discussing his ideas further with him, Agar’s discussion of De Grey were a particular highlight of the book and made for an engaging discussion. Whilst expressing concern and doubt in relation to De Grey’s ideas, Agar is nevertheless quick and gracious enough to acknowledge that if such therapies could be achieved then De Grey is probably the best person to comment on and achieve such therapies given the depth of knowledge and understanding that he has built up in this area.
Weiye Loh

Net-Neutrality: The First Amendment of the Internet | LSE Media Policy Project - 0 views

blogs.lse.ac.uk/...irst-amendment-of-the-internet

Net Neutrality

shared by Weiye Loh on 30 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • debates about the nature, the architecture and the governing principles of the internet are not merely technical or economic discussions.  Above all, these debates have deep political, social, and cultural implications and become a matter of public, national and global interest.
  • In many ways, net neutrality could be considered the first amendment of the internet; no pun intended here. However, just as with freedom of speech the principle of net neutrality cannot be approached as absolute or as a fetish. Even in a democracy we cannot say everything applies all the time in all contexts. Limiting the core principle of freedom of speech in a democracy is only possible in very specific circumstances, such as harm, racism or in view of the public interest. Along the same lines, compromising on the principle of net neutrality should be for very specific and clearly defined reasons that are transparent and do not serve commercial private interests, but rather public interests or are implemented in view of guaranteeing an excellent quality of service for all.
  • One of the only really convincing arguments of those challenging net neutrality is that due to the dramatic increases in streaming activity and data-exchange through peer-to-peer networks, the overall quality of service risks being compromised if we stick to data being treated on a first come first serve basis. We are being told that popular content will need to be stored closer to the consumer, which evidently comes at an extra cost.
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  • Implicitly two separate debates are being collapsed here and I would argue that we need to separate both. The first one relates to the stability of the internet as an information and communication infrastructure because of the way we collectively use that infrastructure. The second debate is whether ISPs and telecommunication companies should be allowed to differentiate in their pricing between different levels of quality of access, both towards consumers and content providers.
  • Just as with freedom of speech, circumstances can be found in which the principle while still cherished and upheld, can be adapted and constrained to some extent. To paraphrase Tim Wu (2008), the aspiration should still be ‘to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally’, but maybe some forms of content should be treated more equally than others in order to guarantee an excellent quality of service for all. However, the societal and political implications of this need to be thought through in detail and as with freedom of speech itself, it will, I believe, require strict regulation and conditions.
  • In regards to the first debate on internet stability, a case can be made for allowing internet operators to differentiate between different types of data with different needs – if for any reason the quality of service of the internet as a whole cannot be guaranteed anymore. 
  • Concerning the second debate on differential pricing, it is fair to say that from a public interest and civic liberty perspective the consolidation and institutionalization of a commercially driven two-tiered internet is not acceptable and impossible to legitimate. As is allowing operators to differentiate in the quality of provision of certain kind of content above others.  A core principle such as net neutrality should never be relinquished for the sake of private interests and profit-making strategies – on behalf of industry or for others. If we need to compromise on net neutrality it would always have to be partial, to be circumscribed and only to improve the quality of service for all, not just for the few who can afford it.
  • Separating these two debates exposes the crux of the current net-neutrality debate. In essence, we are being urged to give up on the principle of net-neutrality to guarantee a good quality of service.  However, this argument is actually a pre-text for the telecom industry to make content-providers pay for the facilitation of access to their audiences – the internet subscribers. And this again can be linked to another debate being waged amongst content providers: how do we make internet users pay for the content they access online? I won’t open that can of worms here, but I will make my point clear.  Telecommunication industry efforts to make content providers pay for access to their audiences do not offer legitimate reasons to suspend the first amendment of the internet.
Weiye Loh

Why we mustn't ban the book on the Mahatma « churumuri - 0 views

churumuri.wordpress.com/...nt-ban-the-book-on-the-mahatma

Censorship India Gandhi Book

shared by Weiye Loh on 01 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • As one of those who have in fact read the book, I would like to place on record that Lelyveld at no place in the book has described Gandhi as a racist. In fact, as one of the foremost authorities on apartheid and racial discrimination, Lelyveld has shown the cultural distance that Gandhi traversed in a short span of only four months in his understanding of the ‘native question’ in colonial South Africa.
  • As we seek to ban the book on the ground that it constitutes insult to the Father of the Nation, we should remember that the book itself makes no statements of the kind which are attributed to it. But, that cannot be the sole ground on which the decision to ban or not ban a book rests.
  • No civilised, democratic society can ban a book, however blasphemous or salacious. The only response to a book can be a book, a counter-argument.
Weiye Loh

A 'Good Book,' Absent God - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...16beliefs.html

Religion Bible PHilosophy

shared by Weiye Loh on 18 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • That focus on the deity, Mr. Grayling believes, distracts from seeking the good life in the short time we are allotted.
  • Mr. Grayling finds Judaism and Christianity almost self-evidently absurd: “I could never believe the sin committed by Eve in the Garden of Eden was all that serious,” he said. “It would seem to me that knowledge was a good thing to have.” And he does not fret that we need divine commandments to ensure that we treat one another well: “All the stories that fill the newspaper — war, chaos — they are there because they are unusual. They are not as great a story as the millions of acts of human kindness throughout human history.”
  • To make a non-bible look an awful lot like the Bible could be a bad idea. There is an unfortunate history of humanist movements co-opting the forms of religion. In the 19th century, the Frenchman Auguste Comte, for example, tried futilely to start a religion of humanity, modeled on the organization of the Catholic Church, with priests, weekly services and feast days, but without God. “It ignominiously failed, and I think it’s quite right it failed,” Mr. Grayling says.
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  • But while it may be unwise to imitate organized religion, the Bible has many imitable virtues. “One of the charms of the Bible has been you can take a short passage and reflect on it,” Mr. Grayling said. And by aping the form of the Bible, he added, “ ‘The Good Book’ is presented as another contribution to the same conversation as the Bible, about the nature of the good or the good life.”
  • “I think,” the master says, “this book provides resources for thinking about what the good life might be. But we have to think for ourselves. We have to take the Socratic challenge to lead the examined life. You must transcend the teachings and the teachers. Don’t be a disciple.”
Weiye Loh

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones - 0 views

motherjones.com/...denial-science-chris-mooney

Denial Climate Science Data Framing Science Communication

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a "culture war of fact." In other words, paradoxically, you don't lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.
  • Kahan's work at Yale. In one study, he and his colleagues packaged the basic science of climate change into fake newspaper articles bearing two very different headlines—"Scientific Panel Recommends Anti-Pollution Solution to Global Warming" and "Scientific Panel Recommends Nuclear Solution to Global Warming"—and then tested how citizens with different values responded. Sure enough, the latter framing made hierarchical individualists much more open to accepting the fact that humans are causing global warming. Kahan infers that the effect occurred because the science had been written into an alternative narrative that appealed to their pro-industry worldview.
  • If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn't trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.
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  • All we can currently bank on is the fact that we all have blinders in some situations. The question then becomes: What can be done to counteract human nature itself?
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: A Decrease in Floods Around the World? - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...se-in-floods-around-world.html

Flood Disaster Climate Science Climate Change

shared by Weiye Loh on 20 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Bouziotas et al. presented a paper at the EGU a few weeks ago (PDF) and concluded: Analysis of trends and of aggregated time series on climatic (30-year) scale does not indicate consistent trends worldwide. Despite common perception, in general, the detected trends are more negative (less intense floods in most recent years) than positive. Similarly, Svensson et al. (2005) and Di Baldassarre et al. (2010) did not find systematical change neither in flood increasing or decreasing numbers nor change in flood magnitudes in their analysis.
  • This finding is largely consistent with Kundzewicz et al. (2005) who find: Out of more than a thousand long time series made available by the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) in Koblenz, Germany, a worldwide data set consisting of 195 long series of daily mean flow records was selected, based on such criteria as length of series, currency, lack of gaps and missing values, adequate geographical distribution, and priority to smaller catchments. The analysis of annual maximum flows does not support the hypothesis of ubiquitous growth of high flows. Although 27 cases of strong, statistically significant increase were identified by the Mann-Kendall test, there are 31 decreases as well, and most (137) time series do not show any significant changes (at the 10% level). Caution is advised in interpreting these results as flooding is a complex phenomenon, caused by a number of factors that can be associated with local, regional, and hemispheric climatic processes. Moreover, river flow has strong natural variability and exhibits long-term persistence which can confound the results of trend and significance tests.
  • estructive floods observed in the last decade all over the world have led to record high material damage. The conventional belief is that the increasing cost of floods is associated with increasing human development on flood plains (Pielke & Downton, 2000). However, the question remains as to whether or not the frequency and/or magnitude of flooding is also increasing and, if so, whether it is in response to climate variability and change. Several scenarios of future climate indicate a likelihood of increased intense precipitation and flood hazard. However, observations to date provide no conclusive and general proof as to how climate change affects flood behaviour.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • References: Bouziotas, D., G. Deskos, N. Mastrantonas, D. Tsaknias, G. Vangelidis, S.M. Papalexiou, and D. Koutsoyiannis, Long-term properties of annual maximum daily river discharge worldwide, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 13, Vienna, EGU2011-1439, European Geosciences Union, 2011. Kundzewicz, Z.W., D. Graczyk, T. Maurer, I. Przymusińska, M. Radziejewski, C. Svensson and M. Szwed, 2005(a):Trend detection in river flow time-series: 1. annual maximum flow. Hydrol. Sci. J., 50(5): 797-810.
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